Good day with a good judge last Monday in Cherokee County State Court. I handled 6 probation violations (or VOPs as they are known). Usually, that’s automatic jail time and that makes good sense because probation is considered serving time; it’s just serving time outside of jail versus inside of jail. Screw up on the outside, they’ll put you inside. If you can’t behave with others, you get time out. But I had a good day Monday…and we had a good judge. Of the 6 VOPs I handled, 3 of them went home. Half. That’s a damn good outcome.
So what do we learn from this? One, it’s best to follow your terms and conditions of probation because you really don’t want to be in this situation to begin with. Two, if you do find yourself in this situation, it’s not always automatic jail time. The bottom line is this: the less malicious and intentional your violation is, the more likely it is that you too may go home.
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